I don’t think you can appeal until a decision is handed down.
Jonathan
The trial isn’t over yet. You can’t appeal until there’s a ruling in the lower court.
Why did this even start in a lower court?
Where else would it start?
Does the MN State Supreme Court have any original jurisdiction? The USSC has the following:
ETA: They could appeal any preliminary rulings made before the trial completes, but I do not know if any have been made.
Jonathan
I can’t think of anything better the highest court in Minnesota should be doing right now than deciding who will represent it in the federal government. How is this not a priority?
It’s not a question of priority, it’s a question of jurisdiction. In most states the highest court is an appellate court and not, for most purposes, a court of original jurisdiction; there is no procedure to bring suit there. Furthermore, an appellate court is not set up to try cases, only to review appeals and hear oral arguments thereon.
In the realm of technical nitpicks, I’d offer this correction: not “any” preliminary rulings. Interlocutory appeals have their own rules, and the types of rulings that may be thus appealed is limited.
And this is a special Elections Complaint Court (ECC), which is set up by Minnesota law to hear exactly the kind of case they’re hearing right now. They are the court of original jurisdiction for an election dispute in the state of Minnesota.
And from what I can tell, this court is doing a rather fine job. To the extent they have allowed the Coleman team slack, that team has been using it to tie a noose around thier case.
Sorry…correcting myself. Elections CONTEST Court.
I saw Franken at a dinner this weekend. He said that he expected this court case to be over in 2-3 weeks. (But he spent most of the time talking about his wife’s pie.)
You can see a video of his talk here.
That’s a little personal for a dinner conversation isn’t it?
he he
Well, he was trying to sell it. The final price it brought was $100.
Listening at work to the uptake.org is interesting. Franken’s lawyers are bringing up voters that had their (presumably Franken) votes improperly thrown out. Friedberg brings them up on cross and totally agrees that their votes had been thrown out improperly. Whereas, when the roles were reversed and Coleman’s witnesses were testifying, Lillehaug was obliterating them. But because of how Coleman’s campaign is trying to couch their case, they have to agree that ballots were wrongly rejected. So because of the path they chose, they are helping to expand Franken’s lead.
Ahhh, the tangled web.
On another front, the Franken team has finally gone and asked that the case be dismissed, something everyone knew was coming, but no one knew what time it would.
Ahh yes, as many here know, one of the great benefits of being today’s “conservative” is not having to investigate the issues for yourself… your thoughts are directly beamed into your brain by O’reilly, Rush, and Billy-Bob-belly-ache at the end of the bar (as the P2P* applications are quite powerful as well in ensuring you don’t have to actually exercise any sort of critical thinking).
It’s a great time saver… and as we all know… in this economy, every moment counts.
*propaganda to peer
The legal fees have to be more than a term in the senate would earn. Who is paying?
Given his past, I would imagine it will involve a “bad” accountant.
At least part of it is fundraising. The linked article, from early Feb, says they have each raised at least $3 million to pay for the recount legal fees.